2/24/21 Bates College, Memorial Commons in Chase Hall 

Welcome to the First Outing Club Meeting (of 2021)! 

Soso: Welcome to the meeting! I’m Soso and I’m the vice president 

And this is Ronan 

Ronan: I’m ronan and I’m the president, my pronouns are he/him /his

Soso: We’re gonna go around and say our names, pronouns, and a fun fact about ourselves 

~introductions~

Soso: It’s lovely to meet you all. We want to give a shout out, as Mohammad said it’s his birthday so let’s wish him a happy birthday. Now we’re gonna kick off this meeting with some announcements. 

Nathan: Thank you for having us. The feedback team has been working for the past few months trying to create a feedback form. Got some feedback and people feel this isn’t the best way to talk about trauma so we’re working with the OIE and other people on campus to navigate a way to do that without being more harmful. Reach out if you want to be a part of this nhuynh@bates.edu 

Soso: Awesome thanks guys. Community Liaison 

Isabella: Topher from the Harward Center reached out to us in terms of working with kids from Hillviews. Lots of them are immigrants who do not have a lot of snow experience so we thought it would be great to bring the BOC to spend time outside with them in the snow. Next Wednesday March 3rd from 3-5 we’re going to do a snowman fashion show making snowmen and dressing them up in friendly competition. Link to sign up for this event will be in the meeting notes. Would be a really fun way to have community engagement. There will be transportation and we have the authorization to go off campus.

Soso: Sounds like a great opportunity and Topher is delightful, I think we’re going to do great things with him. Next e-room. 

Pete: Nat and I are this year’s e-room directors. We thought we could tell you about what the e-room is and what’s next in the coming weeks.

Nat: The e-room is a room full of equipment and anything you can think of at your disposal so you can check out skis or snowboards or snowshoes or backpacks. You can come to our hours Monday and Thursday from 5:30-7PM and check out whatever you want. We’re working right now and in the winter it’s especially busy because we have to fit skis and boots and things. We really need a couple of volunteers to help out with e-room hours. Need as much help as we can get

Pete: It’s a great job but terrible pay. It’s in this building by the loading dock. Where they used to load food because this was the dining hall. No one is allowed inside because of COVID-19 so if you want to check out gear you should show up early so we can get you fitted, we have to walk the boots through the building out to you to try them on. Ski gear hot takes at the end.

Ashley: Seriously sign up to help out in the e-room! Nat and Pete won’t be directors forever and it’s a great way to get experience before becoming an e-room director. Freshmen I’m looking at you! Also Nat and Pete are great and you should just go spend time with them.

Ronan: How would they get in contact to be a volunteer? What does this entail?

Pete: Sending out google form later today. We have stuff for a couple different sports but mostly the position is logging and cataloging gear that goes in out and also sizing people with gear. Usually more like a retail store where ask for assistance when needed but now we have to bring stuff out to you more.

Nat: Mostly would be helping with ski equipment this year. We can totally teach you even if you don’t ski or snowboard.

Pete: Simple stuff and fun space, great way to familiarize yourself with all kinds of sports.

Soso: Thanks guys. So next on the docket we just want to announce something. So you probably got an email from Judy this morning. Judy stepped down from her position of our Bates outing club advisor. She graduated in ‘66, fell in love with the BOC, she’s been our alumni advisor since ‘82. We’re sad to see her go but Ronana and I are are going to start thinking about ways to thank her and honor her legacy as a devoted Bates outing club member and we would love to have your help. 

For most of our meetings before COVID-19 we would be in our meeting room telling fun stories and talking about gear that we want but right now we’d like to talk about our carnival that’s coming up and goals for the semester. Thanks to Anna and Elliot we’ve had lots of drastic change, and also Marisa our advisor who’s a part of campus life who looks over us has also been doing a lot of work. We’ll alk about that and then traditional convos. Ronan Winter carnival.

Ronan: First off, Winter carnival. Has been happening for a long time, changed because of COVID-19 but still happening. Lots of events happening this week and some sitting around you so thank them. I submitted your trip notes for you if you’re leading an event. March 1 to the 6 and campus life doing events till 7th so watch out for that. Sign up links should be coming tomorrow 2/25.

We’re not having puddle jump this year. As a reminder, we don’t and school doesn’t condone puddle jump. Not running official or unofficial. We will be ice skating on the puddle which we’re super excited for. Also having a scavenger hunt where you can wear your puddle jump gear. Also having a trip to Thorncrag snowshoeing or hiking depending on snow level. Also winter market giving out color changing cups and giving them out at events too. If interested in planning or running event, need help with sledding, skating, and winter market. 

Ashley: Do we check out gear beforehand or will it be provided at events? 

Ronan: All gear will be provided at events. If you’re going on a hike, bring water and snack for yourself. If you don’t have warm winter items we will bring stuff to those events. Don’t check out stuff from the  e-room for events prior to when they happen because we want to be able to bring all the gear to the event. Moving on from there, we’re going to talk a little bit about our goals for the semester. The president and vice president support and represent club but not fully represent it so we want to make sure that club represents what you all care about in these goals. Want to make club space we all want it to be and make it as accepting as possible

4 goals

Diversity, accountability, connection, and transparency. Here’s a powerpoint on it: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JTZrgmxKJnm2nleR-DixfRk96UqiwXSBiILsFau8Jrk/edit?usp=sharing If you have any questions Soso and I are always happy to talk about it and we want to create a space where you feel comfortable challenging our ideas. Email us at rgoulden@bates.edu and shoag@bates.edu 

Elliott: Thank you guys for your hard work

*lots of snaps*

Ronan: Thank you. One thing I will plug is one thing we want to work on is more leadership opportunities, opportunities regarding that is the NESCAC anti-racism group. Doing a speaker series across the entire NESCAC on inclusively in the outdoors and bringing a space to talk about these topics. Especially since NESCAC represents swatch of PWI (primarily white institutions) if you want to help get speakers then be a part of the committee. Main role is reaching out to various speakers to see when we can have them on campus. Want this to last over 3-4 semesters so you can join later on as well. Reach out to myself (rgoulden@bates.edu)  if you’re interested in joining Also on the topic of speakers Marisa reached out to us about topic from Bowdoin student or NESCACs (maybe just in maine) on creating BIPOC student panel about increasing inclusion. Reach out to Marisa (mmelnick@bates.edu) if you’re interested in that. That’s all. Any other announcements?

Ronan: Typically now we go into traditional meeting structure so now it’s time for trips and events. Anything running on campus is what we talk about now, anybody else running anything? 

Nathan: 2.5 weeks climbing trip at salt pump. Very COVID safe. Orientation about the facility there. Liquid chalk which is mostly alcohol so self sanitizes. Rub shoes on disinfectant mats, lots of social distancing. 2 vans with spacing 7 students

Pete: What is salt pump is it coal (or cold, idk) 

Nathan: Climbing gym near Portland: lots of walls, bouldering, 6 autobelays, workout area. Can get belay certification 

Levi: Do I have to know how to climb?

Nathan: Absolutely not! 

Soso: And they have dogs! 

Roanna: They have dogs?

Ashley: You’ve seen the dogs! 

Ronan: I have a terrible memory, maybe I shouldn’t share that. Anyways, going to lead trip to Thorncrag snowshoeing or microspikes. Bird sanctuary 5 mins away, take a security van. Small trip 

Ashley: Personal cars?

Ronan: Can’t have anyone from BOC taking personal cars to events. Only vans or school busses. 

Ashley: Why?

Ronan: Right now, COVID issue allows personal car only one other person, also insurance issue, not gonna get into nitty gritty but when drive van certified, the college insurance and car insurance covers you but can’t cover you if something happens and you use your personal car. Hope to host small little session to get more people van certified.

Soso: This is a different trip than Sophie and Natalie’s trip. Any other? 

Jack: Been working with Bates art society to get photoclub up and running want to do natural photography program 

Ashley: Do we need our own cameras?

Jack: Media exchange, able to check out pretty nice cameras and stuff

Soso: Anyone on zoom or google meet? 

Google Meet People: We’re good, thank you though!

Soso: Budget proposals or gear?? Oh we’re changing how we’re doing this to keep trips more accountable and be more COVID safe. Can make proposals but won’t vote on them yet. Taken into account by e-board mostly e-room and Katie to see if good investment and come back to hear what you have to say and hear pros and cons about it and make a decision. Any budget proposals or gear they want to see in e-room or anything you want to see happening.

Nat: I know a lot of you guys haven’t been in there and don’t know what’s there. Feel free to email me and Peter if you want anything and don’t know if it’s there (nmeenan@bates.edu, pdunbar2@bates.edu) 

Elliott: Do you guys have hammocks?

Nat: Just got some! 

Ronan: Hoping mid-semester e-room directors can give us a reccomendation list of various gear and see if they are fitting the goals. Additional on budgets we will have official motion but we’re hoping with trips there’s certain things trips need if they’re going to run we feel to make a trip proposal a little smoother lets not have votes on vans for trips and count them as an assumed cost of trips. We never had a van proposal shot down during my time in the BOC.

Peter: Soso and Ronan talked about goals in general. More behind the scenes with Nat and Marisa how we want to improve e-room and move in different direction. Have ability to purchase stuff because not running as many trips. Trying to have more complete stock, complete package for each sport. Clothing we need for certain sports. Have skis and helmets and bikes but not everyone has things we usually think of as gear like appropriate clothing, if you think of anything that would make the club more accessible shoot it our way. Any ideas, feel free to reach out 

Nat: Also if you have anything on the flip side that you want to get rid of or donate reach out to us we love free stuff

Soso: Thank you guys. Just threw a lot at you. Gonna do something else. Thanks for being here and thanks for sitting through this. Lots of changes in our club and it’s a big process we’ve all been going through. Excited for where it goes, a lot of work and tiring. A lot of meeting going forward going to invite speakers and have engaging conversations. Also gonna have more free flowing meetings, experiences, trips we’ve been on. We thank you so much for ingesting everything we threw at you. Last thing we’re going to do is some storytelling if anyone wants to join. A big tradition is that we always end with storytelling. But it has become controversial. In the past people, sorry i have a concussion it’s hard to talk sometimes, people liked to share “sendy” stories around extreme sports but that’s not all we’re about. Yes overnights and ice climbing but also love Thorncrag and picnics and game nights. Outdoors is  not always scaling a mountain. Means being outside in nature and we’re about serving all people. Not intimidating exclusionary storytelling but a more inclusive way. We’re gonna start implementing PIES. Physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. Want to center on these themes to make them more intimate and less exclusive.

Ronan: And just sort of what we’re working towards is creating a way for people to bring themselves into meeting space. More on PIES. It’s an acronym, brought to us by Nathan. Doing it with the feedback team. How are you feeling physically or how did the story make you feel physically? I = intellectually or what experience made you think. E = emotionally how it made you feel, how you feel. Spirituality = take it however you want, a lot of people made it about connecting to things. Join us.  

Minutes recorded by Ashley Koman ‘22